Provinciale Statenverkiezingen 2023

How do political campaigns target voters?

Methodology

In collaboration with Who Targets Me, we monitored over 1000 Dutch political advertisers during the 2023 Provinciale Statenverkiezingen (Provincial elections) to better understand how campaigns use different targeting methods made available by Meta. To do this, we used data from the Meta Ad Library, using the new ‘Audience’ data which gives some detail on how pages target their ads.

To better understand the regional election, we kept only advertisers who:

  1. Advertised in the last 7 days (March 3rd - March 9th 2023)
  2. Advertised in the last 30 days (February 8th - March 9th 2023)

Note: Meta only provides 7, 30 and 90 days windows for the targeting data in their Ad Library. Meta’s data also lags by a few days. We will update this report as soon as new data is available.

Topline Statistics

Meta

February 8th - March 9th 2023 (Last 30 days)

In total, political parties spend €417,389 and ran 4729 ad copies on Meta in this timeframe.

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend

CDA

30


1. CDA Noord-Holland (€12,267)
2. CDA Limburg (€7,129)
3. CDA Provincie Utrecht (€6,229)

539

€62,778

PvdA

33


1. Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) (€32,224)
2. PvdA Noord Holland (€6,611)
3. PvdA Zuid-Holland (€4,884)

489

€59,056

GroenLinks

18


1. GroenLinks (€50,499)
2. GroenLinks Brabant (€1,771)
3. Jesse Klaver (€1,072)

256

€55,909

SP

11


1. SP (€47,469)
2. Lilian Marijnissen (€4,039)
3. SP Noord-Brabant (€509)

328

€52,817

VVD

41


1. VVD (€9,334)
2. Limburgse VVD (€6,411)
3. VVD Flevoland (€2,522)

642

€29,624

Volt Nederland

4


1. Volt Nederland (€22,810)
2. Volt Noord-Holland (€2,204)
3. Volt Brabant (€1,776)

773

€26,909

FvD

3


1. Forum voor Democratie -FVD (€25,824)
2. Wybren van Haga (€784)
3. Forum voor Democratie Zeeland (€100)

32

€26,708

BBB

4


1. BBB BoerBurgerBeweging (€22,372)
2. BBB Boerburgerbeweging Noord-Holland (€725)
3. BBB Boerburgerbeweging Zeeland (€459)

78

€23,656

PvdD

13


1. Partij voor de Dieren (€13,143)
2. Partij voor de Dieren Noord-Holland (€1,468)
3. Partij voor de Dieren Rijnland (€911)

245

€18,371

D66

21


1. D66 Noord-Holland (€2,734)
2. D66 (€1,656)
3. D66 Zuid-Holland (€1,591)

216

€14,598

BVNL

7


1. Belang van Nederland - BVNL (€11,333)
2. BVNL-Haarlemmermeer (€191)
3. BVNL Gelderland (€161)

72

€12,094

Ja21

2


1. Ja21 (€6,636)
2. JA21 Drenthe (€104)

295

€6,740

PVV

10


1. Geert Wilders (€4,478)
2. PVVLimburg (€543)
3. PVV Fryslan (€348)

55

€6,280

ChristenUnie

17


1. ChristenUnie Flevoland (€2,192)
2. ChristenUnie Fryslân (€770)
3. ChristenUnie Noord-Holland (€764)

173

€6,098

50PLUS

4


1. 50PLUSpartij (€3,971)
2. 50PLUSFlevoland (€884)
3. 50PLUS-Overijssel (€553)

79

€5,626

DENK

2


1. DENK (€4,151)
2. Mahmut Sungur DENK (€652)

377

€4,803

SGP

5


1. SGP (€1,542)
2. SGP Zeeland (€855)
3. SGP provincie Gelderland (€655)

54

€3,252

Alliantie

2


1. Henriette van Hedel - Alliantie (€1,970)
2. Alliantie (€100)

26

€2,070

March 3rd - March 9th 2023 (Last 7 days)

In total, political parties spend €247,388 and ran 3545 ad copies on Meta in this timeframe.

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend

CDA

27


1. CDA Noord-Holland (€11,472)
2. CDA Limburg (€7,065)
3. CDA Provincie Utrecht (€6,110)

517

€55,679

PvdA

29


1. Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) (€18,334)
2. PvdA Brabant (€3,161)
3. PvdA Zuid-Holland (€2,568)

406

€33,217

GroenLinks

16


1. GroenLinks (€26,072)
2. GroenLinks Brabant (€1,142)
3. Jesse Klaver (€1,056)

213

€30,463

VVD

35


1. Limburgse VVD (€5,428)
2. VVD (€4,903)
3. VVD Brabant (€1,588)

542

€19,834

FvD

2


1. Forum voor Democratie -FVD (€16,328)
2. Wybren van Haga (€278)

23

€16,606

PvdD

13


1. Partij voor de Dieren (€12,463)
2. Partij voor de Dieren Noord-Holland (€837)
3. Partij voor de Dieren Noord-Brabant (€621)

213

€16,035

Volt Nederland

4


1. Volt Nederland (€10,929)
2. Volt Noord-Holland (€2,204)
3. Volt Brabant (€1,776)

601

€15,028

SP

9


1. SP (€11,155)
2. Lilian Marijnissen (€1,368)
3. SP Noord-Brabant (€280)

158

€13,403

D66

21


1. D66 Noord-Holland (€2,071)
2. D66 Zuid-Holland (€1,337)
3. D66 Provincie Utrecht (€1,180)

122

€11,424

BVNL

7


1. Belang van Nederland - BVNL (€8,963)
2. BVNL Gelderland (€161)
3. Arjan de Kok - BVNL (€100)

60

€9,624

BBB

4


1. BBB BoerBurgerBeweging (€8,184)
2. BBB Boerburgerbeweging Noord-Holland (€725)
3. BBB Boerburgerbeweging Zeeland (€100)

40

€9,109

ChristenUnie

16


1. ChristenUnie Flevoland (€1,166)
2. ChristenUnie (€572)
3. ChristenUnie Fryslân (€333)

120

€3,583

50PLUS

4


1. 50PLUSpartij (€2,579)
2. 50PLUSFlevoland (€647)
3. 50PLUS-Overijssel (€139)

51

€3,480

Ja21

2


1. Ja21 (€3,071)
2. JA21 Drenthe (€104)

146

€3,175

DENK

2


1. DENK (€1,959)
2. Mahmut Sungur DENK (€397)

241

€2,356

SGP

4


1. SGP (€1,232)
2. SGP Zeeland (€662)
3. SGP Goeree-Overflakkee (€100)

41

€2,094

PVV

7


1. Geert Wilders (€544)
2. PVVLimburg (€349)
3. PVV Fryslan (€172)

32

€1,499

Alliantie

2


1. Henriette van Hedel - Alliantie (€679)
2. Alliantie (€100)

19

€779

Google

For Google platforms, data accessed via the Google Transparency Report provides exact spending on how much money was spent by parties in last 30 days. The table below shows spending in the timerange between February 11th to March 13th 2023.

Number of Ads Top Spenders Total Spend

FvD

20


1. Forum voor Democratie (€50,650)

€50,650

Volt Nederland

932


1. Volt Nederland (€32,500)

€32,500

GroenLinks

120


1. GroenLinks (€31,300)
2. Stichting GroenLinks in de EU (€200)

€31,500

D66

114


1. D66 (€25,900)

€25,900

SP

35


1. SP (Socialistische Partij) (€22,800)

€22,800

BBB

145


1. Marc-Michel Strijker (€20,650)

€20,650

CDA

165


1. Christen Democratisch Appèl (€12,450)
2. Stichting statenfractie CDA Gelderland (€7,400)
3. CDA Doetinchem (€50)

€19,900

VVD

89


1. VVD (€8,500)
2. Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (€1,700)

€10,200

PvdA

20


1. Partij van de Arbeid (€9,750)

€9,750

JA21

20


1. Conservatieve Liberalen (€7,900)

€7,900

DENK

24


1. Politieke beweging DENK (€5,250)

€5,250

50PLUS

134


1. Stichting fractieondersteuning 50plus Flevoland (€3,850)

€3,850

ChristenUnie

212


1. ChristenUnie (€1,300)

€1,300

BVNL

10


1. Belang Van Nederland (€1,200)

€1,200

Spending per Targeting Criteria

How much did campaigns spend on different targeting methods?

February 8th - March 9th 2023 (Last 30 days)

Overall

By Party

March 3rd - March 9th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Overall

By Party

Top Targeted Audiences

Here, we show the top targeted audiences for each party (ranked by amount of Euro spend). Most (but not all) of these audiences are “interest” audiences, i.e. the parties targeted people interested in “Books” or “Politics”.

February 8th - March 9th 2023 (Last 30 days)

March 3rd - March 9th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Top Contested Audiences

Here, we show the top most contested audiences, i.e. where all parties have spent considerable amounts of money competing to reach voters with the same interests. Most (but not all) of these audiences are “interest” audiences, i.e. the parties targeted people interested in “Books” or “Politics”. In each row on the right hand side, you can see how much in total was spend on that specific target audience.

February 8th - March 9th 2023 (Last 30 days)

March 3rd - March 9th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Age Targeting

February 8th - March 9th 2023 (Last 30 days)

March 3rd - March 9th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Gender Targeting

February 8th - March 9th 2023 (Last 30 days)

March 3rd - March 9th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Education Targeting

February 8th - March 9th 2023 (Last 30 days)

March 3rd - March 9th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Job Targeting

February 8th - March 9th 2023 (Last 30 days)

March 3rd - March 9th 2023 (Last 7 days)

ZIP Code Targeting

The following maps show ZIP code targeting for a few parties that spend a lot on this kind of targeting method. It’s important to note that the spending here “overlaps”, i.e. one cannot sum up across all different ZIP codes as some targeted ZIP codes have a shared budget.

February 8th - March 9th 2023 (Last 30 days)

VVD

CDA

ChristenUnie